


Like Mother, Like Daughter

by WildWolf25



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (Sam Matt and Shiro only pop up for a minute), Family, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Holt Family, takes place before Pidge goes to the Garrison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 17:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11514075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildWolf25/pseuds/WildWolf25
Summary: Colleen and Katie deal with Sam and Matt’s disappearance, each in their own way.  Turns out being badass runs in the family.





	Like Mother, Like Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> *banging pots and pans together* Dreamworks! Give us Holt family dynamics and interactions!

The first thing Colleen Holt did when the doorbell woke her up at 3:30 AM was check her daughter’s room.  Katie’s bed was empty, and her backpack was missing from where it usually sat next to her desk.  She wasn’t surprised.  

The doorbell rang again as she was making her way downstairs, tying her bathrobe and yawning.  She reminded herself to attempt to look at least a little surprised when she opened the door and found a very disgruntled-looking Galaxy Garrison official on her porch with his hand around the arm of an equally-disgruntled Katie.  

“Mrs. Holt, this is the third time we have caught your daughter trespassing on Galaxy Garrison property.”  The officer told her.  

“Oh goodness, again?”  Colleen eyed the badges on his uniform.  So they tasked a lieutenant with escorting her home this time.  Interesting.  Last time it was only a sergeant.  “Please unhand my daughter, Lieutenant.  There’s no need for that.”  

The man frowned but released Katie’s arm.  She took a step away from him and came to stand next to her mother, glaring at the man murderously.  He returned her glare with one of his own.  “She somehow managed to get past two locked doors and hacked her way into a high-security computer system.  You ought to keep a better eye on her, Mrs. Holt; she’s turning into a regular criminal.”  

“I’ll thank you to leave the parenting to me, Lieutenant.”  Colleen said coldly, lifting her chin.  “You brought her home.  I should think you have more important duties to attend to rather than continue to critique my child-raising methods on my doorstep in the middle of the night.”

The lieutenant’s lips tightened into a frown.  “Make sure we don’t find her on our property again.”  

“Good night, Lieutenant.”  Colleen told him pointedly.  He touched his fingers to the brim of his hat, spared Katie one last glare, and turned on his heel.  

Colleen held the door open for her daughter as the man walked back to his car.  When Katie slipped inside, Colleen followed her in and closed the door, locking it behind her.  Through the window, she watched the military Humvee back out of their driveway and drive down the street.  When it disappeared around the corner, she turned to her daughter.  “Tea?”

“Sure.”  Katie said, unzipping her black hoodie.  She had gotten smarter after the first time they caught her, trading her regular clothes for dark jeans and a black hoodie.  She hung the hoodie up on the coat rack and bent down to undo the velcro straps on her shoes.  They used to be lime-green but the color was now dulled from years of rock dust and smudges of chalk powder.  The soles were curved and not very comfortable to walk in (on a horizontal surface, at least), but she knew Katie had a second pair of shoes in her backpack.  The climbing shoes were only for after she got past the front gate.    

The two of them went to the kitchen and Colleen bustled around making two cups of tea while Katie sat at the counter island and pulled a notebook out of her backpack.  By the time Colleen was setting two mugs of tea on the counter, Katie had filled up half a page with her quick, precise writing, making notes of her progress and how she had taken down their defenses for future reference.

“How far did you get this time?”  Colleen asked, taking a seat on the stool across the island from her.  

“Past the security on Iverson’s desktop.”  Katie replied.  “All he did was change the last number on his password from what it was before.  Real secure.”      

“And what did you find?”   She asked, taking a sip of tea.  

“Expedition log transmissions from the ship.”  Katie took a flashdrive out of her pocket and held it up.  “About seven months worth of them.”  

“Seven months?”  Colleen lifted an eyebrow at that, reaching for her laptop and turning it on.  She didn’t think she would ever forget all the endless tangents her husband had gone on about every detail of the mission.  At first, she had just remembered the look on his face, the way his eyes lit up and seemed to sparkle like the stars he always talked about.  She found herself revisiting those memories so often and so intently that even the words he had spoken were forever ingrained in her mind.  

_ “This ship is a real beauty, Colleen.  And faster than anything we’ve ever built.  It used to take a solid year to get out to the edge of our solar system, but this will take us there in seven months.  Seven months!  Can you believe it?!”   _

Katie handed over the flashdrive and Colleen stuck it in the USB port.  She tapped through the commands with the same ease and precision her daughter had inherited, and pulled up the files.  Each one had a date beside it.  She scrolled down to the bottom and opened the last file.  

Another window popped up, and she found herself looking at her husband’s face.  The sight made her heart ache.  Katie came around the kitchen island to sit beside her as Sam started to speak.  

_ “Kerberos expedition log 213.  Location, Kerberos moon. _ ”  His mouth curled up in a proud smile, and she imagined he was ecstatic about being there.  His hair was ruffled and little wisps stuck up at odd angles in the zero-gravity.   _ “We landed about four hours ago.  The moon’s surface is stable.  All systems are in working order.  Crew has been readying the ice core extraction equipment, and we should be ready to make an excursion in about an hour and a half.  Will send an update upon return.”   _ There was a thunk from somewhere behind him, then Matt’s voice called out from around the corner.  

_ “Whoopsie-daisy!” _

_ “No, don’t throw the-- oh come on.  Really?”   _ Shiro’s voice said, as a set of keys drifted into frame behind Sam’s head.  

_ “Sergeant Shirogane, Technical Sergeant Holt, is there a problem back there?”   _ Sam turned around.  

_ “Huh?  What’s up, Dad?  You never call us--” _

_ “He’s doing the log!” _  Shiro’s voice hissed, and Sam rubbed a hand over his face.  

_ “I mean, no sir, Commander Holt, sir.” _  Matt drifted around the corner and touched his fingers to his temple in a salute that would have looked less silly if he wasn’t floating sideways.   _ “I’ll just, uh… leave you to it.” _  He snatched the floating keys out of the air and pushed off from the wall, disappearing around the corner.  

_ “Nice going, genius.” _  Shiro’s voice muttered out of sight.  Sam just stared at the camera, looking deadpan.  

_ “As I was saying,” _ he cleared his throat.   _ “Everything is going according to schedule here, and in a few hours’ time, we should have a core sample from the first extraction site, alpha-five-epsilon-oh-seven.  I will update the log with any pertinent information following our return to the ship.  Commander Holt, signing off.”   _ He reached toward the top of the camera, and the image on the screen froze as the video ended.

Colleen sat back and nodded.  “They’re alive.”

“They were four months ago, at least.”  Katie said, looking at the time stamp on the video.  

“This was sent from the surface of Kerberos, after landing safely.”  Colleen said.  “They did not crash.”  Her gaze settled on the frozen image of her husband, half turned around with his lips parted in what she imagined was the beginning of a stern lecture for his crew at about maintaining at least the appearance of formality.  “We know now that the Garrison is lying about one thing.  There was no crash due to ‘pilot error’.  Now we just need to find out what else they’re lying about, what happened after this last contact.”  

“That’s the thing, it wasn’t the last contact with the ship, not really.” Katie turned the laptop towards herself, fingers flying over the keys as she pulled up another file from the flashdrive.  “The automated environmental monitoring system continued to send reports back to the Garrison after this log.  It sent one just forty-three minutes after this, and continued to send more reports even later.  It’s even  _ still  _ sending them.  Look, this one is from just yesterday.”  She pointed to the last file.  

Colleen frowned.  “So the ship is still on Kerberos, and still fully functional.”   _ Where is the crew?   _

“I have a theory about that.”  Katie said, scrolling back through the reports.  “This is the one from forty-three minutes after that log, and look at it.  These radiation levels are practically off the charts.”  

Colleen frowned, tapping her finger against the side of her mug.  “Radiation storms don’t just occur on Kerberos.  It doesn’t have that sort of environment.”  She glanced at her daughter, noticing the tight set of her lips.  She knew that look; it meant Katie wanted to say something but was holding herself back.  “Well?”

Katie gave her a sidelong look.  “I… have a hypothesis.”

“Which is?”  

“Don’t laugh.”  

Colleen just arched an eyebrow at her.  Katie hesitated, then took a deep breath.

“It’s possible that they could have come into contact with extraterrestrial life-forms--”

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” Colleen rubbed her forehead.  “Not you too.  I never should have let your brother and you watch ET as children.”  

“No, just think about it.”  Katie said.  “What else could cause high levels of radiation like that?”

“A  _ radiation storm _ , Katie.”  

“But on Kerberos?  This isn’t Earth, Mom.  Kerberos is way too far away from any source of solar energy, and it doesn’t have the sort of electromagnetic field that could create that.”  

“That we currently know of.”  Colleen pointed out.  “May I remind you that the Garrison sent your father to this moon in particular to learn more about it?”  

“See, that’s the thing,” Katie reached for the laptop.  “Look at all these reports from the automated system.  High radiation levels for one hour after they appear, then they taper down to zero by the third hour.  And after that?  Nothing.  No more signs of elevated radiation from then on, in any of these.  Nothing, nada, zilch, for four months and counting.”  She pointed to the graphs on the screen.  

“What kind of radiation was recorded?”  Colleen asked.  Katie tapped a few keys, then frowned at the screen.

“Oddly enough… ionized beta particles.”  

Colleen frowned.  “Beta radiation wouldn’t kill them, certainly not through their suits.”  She said.  At least she could be fairly certain they hadn’t been vaporized on the spot.  “So why didn’t they come back to the ship?”  

Katie sighed and sat back.  “I don’t know.  And that’s all I managed to get before Iverson found me.”  

“Perhaps you shouldn’t do this alone, if you’re going to get caught this many times.”  Colleen said, taking a sip of her tea.  

“No.”  Katie said firmly, her eyes hardening.  “If they catch both of us, then we’re out of options.  They’ll know for sure something is up.  This works better if it looks like it’s just a rebellious teenager.”  

“Then stop acting like a rebellious teenager.”  Colleen told her.  “You can’t afford to keep getting caught.  Eventually, they’re going to step up their defenses.”

“I actually have a plan for that.”  Katie leaned forward.  Colleen recognized that glint in her eyes.  It was the look she had been seeing for years, in Matt and Katie’s eyes -- and on occasion, Sam’s as well -- just before she discovered some elaborate, Goldberg-style prank or creative use of her washing machine as a centrifuge.  When her children were younger, she had dreaded seeing that look, as it always meant there would be a mess to be cleaned up or someone who needed to be taken to the emergency room in less than two hours’ time.  As they grew older, however, their experiments became more refined, more sophisticated, and less explosive.  For the most part, that is.  

“Alright, what is it?”  She asked.

“Well, the problem I always run into is that the guard always wakes up too soon and raises the alarm--”

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘wakes up?  What do you do to the guard?”  She asked, holding up a hand.  

“What, you didn’t think I just strolled in through the front gate, did you?”  Katie said, picking up her backpack and pulling out a slender perfume bottle full of clear liquid.  Colleen doubted it was actually cucumber-melon spray, especially given the small hand-written X in the corner of the store’s label.  

“I cannot believe you.”  She sighed.  “What would your father say?”  

“The real question is, what would Grandma Goldstein say?”  Katie smirked.  

“You know exactly what she would say, she’d be proud of you.  I bet she’s the one who gave you that chloroform.”  All Colleen ever wanted, after growing up with a diplomat for a father and a CIA espionage agent for a mother, was to have a quiet, normal life.  A chance to settle down without moving every few months and be able to start a family.  But no, she had to go and fall in love with the most promising young astrophysicist of the age who was being scouted by Galaxy Garrison recruiters.  Granted, being employed by the Garrison was certainly a stable job with a sizable paycheck, but it meant long nights in the lab and even longer expeditions for her husband.  And then, on top of that, she had a son who was eager to follow in his father’s footsteps and a daughter who seemed just as eager to follow in her grandmother’s.  

“She gave me the recipe,” Katie shrugged.  “Same thing, really.”

“Why can’t she just give you cookie recipes like every other grandmother?”  Colleen massaged her temples.  

“She did.  This was slipped between a recipe for her kolache cookies and one for meringue pie.”  Katie winked, and it looked uncannily like Colleen’s mother’s wink.  No doubt she had done the same wink when giving her granddaughter the recipe for a dangerous chemical concoction.

“Alright, so what happened after you chloroformed the guard?”  She asked.

“Oh, you know, just a little casual climb up to Iverson’s fourth floor office window.”  Katie said, looking very pleased with herself.  “He still thinks I’m getting in through the  _ door _ .  Hilarious, right?”

“A riot.”  Colleen hid her smile by taking a sip of tea.  She knew those family climbing trips would pay off in more ways than just exercise.  They had started taking the kids when they were little, as both of them were too independent to be interested in all the rules that came with team sports, and climbing allowed them to put their problem-solving skills to good use.  The kids had taken to climbing in much the same way they would later take to experimenting and taking apart computers.  Which is to say, almost scarily well.  

“Anyway, that’s not the point.”  Katie said, waving a hand.  “The problem comes when the guard always comes to again too early and raises the alarm, tipping Iverson off.  But I would have no reason to chloroform anyone if I didn’t need to sneak in the gate, right?  So the logical solution would be to already be inside the gate.”  

“And how, exactly, do you plan to accomplish that?”  Colleen raised an eyebrow.  

“Simple.  I’ll enlist in the Garrison.”  Katie said.  

“They’ll never let you in.”  Colleen pointed out.  “It would be too risky on their part, after your father and brother both disappeared on one of their missions.  Of course they would be suspicious of you.”

“Ah, but I never said Katie Holt would enlist at the Garrison.”  Katie grinned and reached back into her bag.  She pulled out a file folder and flipped it open.  “Pidge Gunderson, on the other hand, would have no reason to be kept out.”

Colleen slid the file closer, studying it.  It was a very detailed profile, listing physical characteristics like height and weight as identical to Katie’s own, aside from the gender.  The education and prior experience sections were different enough to avoid arousing suspicion, but a quick look at them revealed nothing obviously amiss.  Pidge Gunderson seemed an utterly average cadet seeking a communications specialist position, nothing outstanding about him at all.  The only thing missing was a photograph.

“How are you planning to pass as male?”  She asked.

“A haircut and Matt’s old cadet uniform.”  Katie replied.  Colleen supposed the access to the uniform was the reason Pidge Gunderson was male and not female.  There were a few slight differences between the uniform styles.  Nothing that would be noticeable to anyone other than a Garrison official, but they were precisely who they were trying to fool. 

“And how are you planning to get information back to me?”  She asked, sliding the file back to her daughter.  “Because there’s no way you’re leaving me out of the loop here.”  

“Bug-resistant sim cards for our phones and computers, made by yours truly.”  Katie replied.  “I would never leave you out of the loop, Mom.”  Katie was missing a father and brother, Colleen was missing a husband and son.  The two remaining Holts had to stick together.    

“You’ve really thought about this.”  It wasn’t a question.  The amount of consideration Katie had taken with this plan was plain to see.  

Katie looked down at her own mug of tea.  “Every day we go without knowing where they are puts us more and more at risk of… of not finding them.  I have to get closer.  We have to find out what’s going on there.”  

Colleen nodded, understanding that better than anyone.  She slid an arm around her daughter’s shoulders, squeezing.  “Your father would be proud of you.  He will be, when he sees everything you’ve done.”  Her lips twitched up in a smile as she glanced at the perfume bottle of chloroform.  “Even putting your little genius brain to use mixing up toxic chemicals to knock out guards while you break into a top secret military facility and commit intellectual robbery.”  

“I think you mean ‘especially’.”  Katie smiled, winding an arm around her mother’s waist.  

“Oh please, honey, the law is your father’s third love, right after his family and science.  He’s as lawful-good as they come.”  Colleen smiled, taking another sip of tea.  “But, regardless of your methods, I think he’s going to be proud of you.  I know I am.”

“Even if I’m ‘turning into a regular criminal’ like Lieutenant Big-Nose said?”  Katie smirked.  

Colleen rolled her eyes.  “A ‘regular’ criminal would be an insult.  More like a criminal mastermind.”    

 

~~~~~

EPILOGUE

If there was one thing Colleen Holt hated, after lack of knowledge, it was a quiet house.  For thirty years, this house had been full of laughter, of life, and occasional explosions from a bit too much enthusiasm in a new experiment.  The past year and a half had been quieter with her husband and son gone, but she and Katie had each other.  Seven months after the Kerberos team lifted off, the announcement came that the crew had been lost due to ‘pilot error’.  There was approximately one week of stunned silence, punctuated only by the sound of muffled sobs behind closed doors and impatient pacing as she called the Garrison over and over again, demanding answers.  Then, the silence of the night had been broken by a doorbell ringing at two in the morning, and after she had gotten her daughter away from the grumpy officer who had escorted her home, she had talked to Katie and listened to her theories that the Garrison was hiding something.  They had to be; it was the only explanation for the complete lack of information surrounding the missing mission.  There was too much red tape blocking the door, and the only solution seemed to go in the back way.

After that, the silence in their home was harder, stonier, more determined.  Katie threw herself into her work, researching and building and testing God only knew what.  And Colleen… honestly, she was just trying to keep her life together.  She admired her daughter’s drive, but Katie had gotten her tenacity from her father.  All Colleen ever wanted was a nice, quiet life with her family.  

But not this quiet.  No, not like this.  This quiet was far too empty to be of any source of comfort.

After Katie enlisted in the Galaxy Garrison under the guise of Pidge Gunderson, Colleen found herself keeping the radio on nearly constantly, trying to drown out the suffocating silence with white noise.  It had been five months since Colleen had first found herself all alone in this too-big, too-empty house, with only email updates from Katie about her progress and any new information.  The silence in the house, even with smooth jazz echoing from the radio in the kitchen, was almost unbearable.  

Colleen paused in the middle of folding the laundry when she heard an unfamiliar ringtone.  It was a remarkably boring ringtone, probably the default setting, and one she hadn’t heard before.  She walked over to her purse and dug around in it for a few moments before locating a small, old flip phone, the burner whose number was listed as the emergency contact for Pidge Gunderson.  She flipped it open and picked up the call.  “Hello?”

“Mrs. Gunderson?”  A curt, business-like man’s voice asked.

“Yes, who is this?”  She had a feeling she already knew.  It was the only people that would be calling about Pidge Gunderson.

“This is Major Carson from the Galaxy Garrison.”  The man said.  She jotted the name down on a pad of paper sitting next to their home phone, in case she needed it for anything in the future.  “I’m afraid I have some bad news, ma’am.”

“What is it?”  She frowned.  

“I’m sorry to tell you that your son, Pidge, was lost in a tragic accident last night.”  

Worry settled heavily in her stomach.  “What do you mean, ‘lost’?”  

“He… I’m afraid he is dead, Mrs. Gunderson.” 

Katie was dead?  No… not her too...  “But…  _ how _ ?”

“There was a terrible accident in the nuclear physics department.  Technician’s error.  We issued a lockdown to protect the cadets, but Pidge, as well as two members of his flight team, ignored the command and snuck out.”      

“What do you mean, ‘technician’s error’?”  Her eyes narrowed.  That sounded far too much like ‘pilot error’.  

“Um.  I’m afraid that information is classified, ma’am.”

“Where is he?”  She demanded.

“He’s… dead, ma’am.”

“Please, Major, just let me have his body back so I can have a proper funeral for my son.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that.”  He said hastily.

“Why not?”  She frowned.  

“That’s… um,” his tone had lost confidence, meanwhile her suspicion had grown stronger.  “Unfortunately, your son and his friends, uh, had accidental contact with severely high levels of radiation.  They were, um, vaporized almost instantly.”

Colleen could think of fairy tales that were more believable than that flimsy excuse.  Rather than causing her any more alarm, his words reassured her somewhat.  “You’re telling me you cannot even return my son’s body?”  

“I’m afraid not, ma’am.”  The man said.  “I’m sorry.”    

After she hung up the phone, she made a note of the time and date of the call for her records.  She slipped the burner phone back into her purse, then straightened up again.  Unless the Garrison could provide a body, she knew Katie wasn’t dead.  An ‘accident in the nuclear physics department’... clearly they were under the impression that she had learned nothing from thirty years of marriage to one of their top astrophysicists.  Not even the Galaxy Garrison had access to nuclear weapons on their premise, and even if they did, any accident involving them would have led to an evacuation, not a lockdown.  The Garrison was only a few miles from this town; there was no way an explosion capable of vaporizing three cadets would have gone unnoticed.  

She paused, catching sight of Katie’s black hoodie where it was hanging on the coat rack, still there from the last night she had been escorted home.  She picked it up, looking down at it for a few minutes in her hands as her mind turned over the possibilities.  Coming to a decision, she spun on her heel and headed for the back of the house.  

In a large, well-lit room near the garage -- which itself had been turned into a workshop long ago -- was the family’s study.  Enough bookshelves lined the walls to fill a small library, and in the center of the room were four desks, all facing each other in a block.  Sam’s and Matt’s were both neat and orderly (well, as orderly as Matt kept anything), as their absences had been planned well in advance.  Katie’s was less so, maps and diagrams and bits of computer parts and tech pushed into little piles that were organized only in her own mind.  Colleen’s own desk was full of stacks of books pulled from the shelves around the room, most of them her husband’s; books on Pluto and its moons, paleobiology, radiation… and a few from Matt’s bottom shelf, studies with colorful cover-jackets that she had for years dismissed as pseudoscience, something he read for enjoyment akin to fiction.  The one on top, that she was currently working through, was titled  _ Among the Stars: a Scientific Analysis of of the Potentiality of Life Outside Earth _ .  She had been skeptical at first, of course, but given the content of Katie’s previous emails over these past five months, perhaps there was something to it.  It was getting harder to deny, when so much of the evidence pointed to it.  Especially after Katie’s last email, which had come to her just the night before.  

She opened up a locked drawer and took out a notebook, the one where she had Katie’s correspondences copied down.  To ensure that no Garrison officials found them, the emails were set to self-destruct an hour after they were received, so she had copied all the information down and kept it stored in this locked drawer.  She flipped through the notebook to the last entry she had received the night before.

_ 9:16 PM:  I have finished up adjustments on the radio frequency scanner and will be testing it out tonight to see if I can get a clearer read on the alien chatter picked up on Monday.  Last time, all I could pick up was the word “Voltron”.  Research on that term still yielding nothing.  I’ll send another update after I get back from testing out the adjusted scanner.  Heading up to the roof now.  Love you  -- Katie _

Colleen smoothed her thumb over the last sentence.  Even though she had transcribed it with her own hand, the words were Katie’s.  She picked up her daughter’s black hoodie from where she had draped it over the back of her desk chair and slipped it on.  

Whatever had happened to her family, the Garrison knew something and was trying to cover it up.  There was no question or doubt in her mind anymore.  She was going to figure out what it was.  And then, she was going to get her family back. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was supposed to post this around Mother's Day WHOOPS. And I'll get to updating my other fics now that I'm not travelling around the middle-of-nowhere-northern-part-of-my-県. It's been a long two weeks with minimal wifi.
> 
> I saw [this post](http://wildwolf25.tumblr.com/post/158005573591/ok-but-rock-climber-pidge-tho) about rock climber Pidge and I am in love with that headcanon, so that made an appearance here.
> 
> Anyway, I really want to see more of the Holts in future seasons. I want to see more of Matt and Sam, of course, but I think there's a lot that can be done with Colleen too; her ENTIRE family is floating around in space and she doesn't know what happened to any of them (presumably). What must that be like? How is she taking it? What is she doing about it? Personally, I think she's giving the Galaxy Garrison hell. Give us the answers, VLD writers!


End file.
